Petition to Rename "A State of Trance" to Reflect its Shift from Traditional Trance Music

Progrez

Elite Member
Jun 17, 2022
2,295 Posts
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As a dedicated follower of trance music, , over time, I have noticed a disturbing shift in the content being played on "A State of Trance" (ASOT). The tracks no longer embody the essence of trance music; instead, they resemble commercial electro house tracks and bear striking similarities to works by artists such as Ian van Dahl, Special D or DHT.



The current crop of tracks being played on ASOT are doing a disservice to trance music and its loyal followers. They are diluting the unique identity that sets trance apart from other genres and giving it an undeserved bad name.

It's time for us to take action. We need ASOT to acknowledge this shift away from traditional trance music by changing its name accordingly - perhaps something like "A State of Turd". This may seem harsh but it reflects our disappointment with how far ASOT has strayed from its roots.

By signing this petition, you're standing up for true trance lovers everywhere who feel betrayed by ASOT's new direction. Let’s reclaim our beloved genre and ensure that it continues to inspire future generations as much as it has inspired us! Please sign this petition today!

Armin van Buuren does have a history of making house music but he is famous for his trance releases like Burned with Desire and Blue Fear and albums such as 76 and Shivers. Up until 2006, 2007 or 2008 he was playing trance but for the past 15 years his productions/remixes and sets are sounding more like commercial electro/big room house or something like EDM pop similar sounding to David Guetta, Steve Aoki, Tiesto, Martin Garrix, W&W, Hardwell rather than trance they sound similar to what Tiesto is doing nowadays with strange auto tuned vocals that sound soulless. All he needs to do now is making tracks with rap artists and call his tracks Trap music. When he gets questioned about it he ignores the questions or deflects it by mentioning the beatles or change in style when it's far from that he has not improved. Both he and the entire former trance scene have forgotten how to make a good sounding trance track. They are super lazy productions over compressed as well and they are pitched up to 138 bpm and slabbed with a "TRANCE" label. Similar to how some house tracks by Axwell, or David Guetta were put as "Progressive House" on beatport if it wasn't the intervention by Luke Chable we would still have that nowadays. Armin and his entire Armada team have already butchered trance by having a monopoly hold on the genre by hogging most of the classics trance and using the word trance in most of radioshow when it's a far cry from his glory days from say between 1999 - 2007 or 2008 and his productions and mixes are polar opposite to his former self during his golden period and to make it worse he thinks his current releases like Blah Blah and Armin van Buuren & Punctual - On & On (feat. Alika) is trance when it's not trance . It's noisy EDM or electro or big room dance and pop I would say. It's the same thing with Ferry Corsten as well.

I have also noticed that he has started a House Music radioshow under dance department where his main focus is on commercial house music and house music. So, my request is for famous and big djs like Armin van Buuren, Markus Schulz, Marlo, Ferry Corsten, Rank 1 etc etc to stop labelling themselves as "Trance DJs" and "Trance producers" because they are creating and playing EDM, electro house or Big room dance or trouse and commercial house music and not trance music and they are just playing the odd trance track here and there and a vinyl sets focusing more on classics rather future classics and some producers like Giuseppe Ottaviani butcher trance classics like airwave and do remix for David Guetta and people consider that to be trance when it's far from it . The current stuff he is playing and producing is worse than the euro dance and future trance stuff that Armin criticised way back in 2004 in this interview -->
For those discounting my knowledge of Trance Music here is a list.



  1. Alexander Church - Artic Haze
  2. Ovnimoon, Mr. Suspect - Ancient Shamanic Meditation
  3. Ovnimoon - Aural Bird
  4. Ovnimoon, Tranonica - Behind The Eye
  5. Omformer - Orbital
  6. Escape Artist - Energy Breakthrough (Adam Pits' Lightspeed Mix)
  7. Omformer - Mercury [SPT005 | Premiere]
  8. Omformer - Photon
  9. Guy Contact - Amphibian Pool [Haŵs]
  10. Fruit – Bull of Heavens [ØEN REC.]
  11. Raroh - 1013
  12. Raroh - Merchants & Shipyards
  13. Trancemaster - Nord Spedition
  14. Alan Backdrop - Oneiron
  15. Alan Backdrop - Dreamland
  16. Alan Backdrop - Opposite Beliefs
  17. Enigma State - Transolar
  18. Alan Backdrop - A Space For Love
  19. Rambal Cochet - Dolphin's Dance
  20. Kamil Polner - Sonata
  21. Ness - Hive Structure
  22. Eon - Pocket Damage
  23. Lolo - Pop the Cats Adventure
  24. Jonas Steur -Silent Waves
  25. Orinoko - Island (Saints & Sinners Remix)
  26. C-Quence - Final Thoughts (Galen Behr Remix)
  27. MK-S - The Last Planet
  28. Mikkel Rev - Sub Sea (Peace Mix)
  29. Omformer - 10.000 Ohm
  30. Artifact 303 - The Ancestors (2023 Mix)
  31. Artifact 303 - Daydreamer (2023 Mix)
  32. Artifact 303 - Energy Waves (2023 Mix)
  33. Assimilated - The Harmonic Frequencies (Raroh Remix)
  34. Ovnimoon, Tranonica - Behind The Eye
  35. Digital Blonde - Serenade.
 
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nightslapper

Senior Member
Oct 5, 2023
696 Posts
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don't be silly mate, best case scenario they'll wipe their asses with these printed in ASOT studios

Armin is known for 'trance', ASOT is one of the most powerful brands in the whole EDM world, despite the overall trance loss of popularity.

And most importantly, after all, you like it or not, most of the stuff they play on ASOT, in fact, IS trance. not something you'd enjoy but still, that's trance too.

so let's not go the genre nazi way by spreading more pointless hate and snobbery
 
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Hoahoa

Senior Member
Apr 23, 2021
285 Posts
202 Thanked
Did you start this petition? Sorry but it comes off as cringe.

We should just move on from Armin. I don’t see the name of his show doing any damage to trance. Actually it’s likely people tune in and eventually find their way to Imagine album, Blue Fear or Communication and then we have more trance fans
 

nightslapper

Senior Member
Oct 5, 2023
696 Posts
445 Thanked
Did you start this petition? Sorry but it comes off as cringe.

We should just move on from Armin. I don’t see the name of his show doing any damage to trance. Actually it’s likely people tune in and eventually find their way to Imagine album, Blue Fear or Communication and then we have more trance fans
exactly, ASOT is still effective as a gate to get new trance fans from the mainstream music listeners, those who enjoy their trance more subtle and sophisticated will find their way
 
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Freezer

Elite Member
Sep 13, 2020
1,503 Posts
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I have noticed a disturbing shift in the content being played on "A State of Trance" (ASOT). The tracks no longer embody the essence of trance music; instead, they resemble commercial electro house tracks and bear striking similarities to works by artists such as Ian van Dahl, Special D or DHT.
Ok so you never heard any episode according to this... So this whole thread becomes irrelevant...
You are basically guessing.

I have heard all 1150 episodes, SO to clear this up...

First 20 minutes is edm, progressive and techno, than Armin plays 40 mins of trance (uplifting, tech, euro-trance lets say). Second hour Ruben plays combination of progressive and uplifting. Guestmix is usually 20 mins. One of the latest guests being Trance Wax, Solarstone.
Both Ruben and Armin supporting Borderline label! They said many times that this is the true essence of trance. They supported almost every Activa track as well. They also supoorted like half of the album by Trance Wax.
So, yes, the real trance is 50% each episode, so its absolutely alright. No big deal.

Armin plays EDM on festivals, on ASOT he plays like 70% trance.

So nothing wrong with that, end of discussion.

The only bad thing is that he is ussualy playing his new singles at the beginning, these are obviously EDM/ Mainstream...
 
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Katadunkass

The Banhammer
TranceFix Crew
Jun 27, 2020
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Age
33
Denmark
honestly I've got more chance of getting a handy from Margot Robbie and believe me I've been trying
iu
 

facade1984

Senior Member
Apr 27, 2021
334 Posts
454 Thanked
Sydney NSW
all jokes aside I don't love this idea and I really don't wanna give any validity to it. however, i've just done an edible and have some shit to get off my chest. i've noticed that by and large, trance fans are super indignant/intolerant when a particular sound doesn't go the way they'd like. firstly, our opinions do not matter. this is one guy's radio show and he'll do whatever the hell he wants, we don't have to listen to it. secondly, it's the close-mindedness of the average trance fan that I can't stand. the other day I joined that classic trance group on facebook and by god there are some right fools in there. on damn near every post there is one obligatory "that's not trance/darude sandstorm/moar cowbel LOL", and I'm not even gonna get into the vinyl vs sync idiots because that's a whole other thing. third problem is forum celebrities who feel the need to espouse their opinions on everything because it's the only place they think they matter. not gonna name any names but we certainly have at least one on here - I'll let you guys fill in the blanks.

it's no surprise to me that some producers have basically take it upon themselves to create their own entirely new trance scene from scratch because the existing "system" is an absolute elitist shit show that tries to treat trance as if it was the absolute pinnacle of all music, which it clearly isn't and I would be happy to explain why if you wanna press me on it. at best it's a highly exclusive, faux-positive-wannabe-influencer pretentious bag of templated white noise and arpeggiated supersaws (in its most popular form at least). it's really not high art and all the fun has been sucked out of it, by and large all we wanna do is pander to our other beard stroking underground chums. i should know, we can smell our own. on the flipside, as I alluded to earlier, I love that guys like ben hemsley or dj the rocketman are just flat out rejecting what we currently have and are playing to way bigger crowds than we've thought possible for some time. people are flocking to these events because it's just plain fun and it's accessible

tl:dr - stop being so up yourselves and just learn how to enjoy all music again. not everything needs to be so clearly black and white. I'll be in my office vibing to taylor swift and maybe a little bit of k-pop
 

dmgtz96

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Jul 13, 2020
2,776 Posts
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tl:dr - stop being so up yourselves and just learn how to enjoy all music again. not everything needs to be so clearly black and white. I'll be in my office vibing to taylor swift and maybe a little bit of k-pop
Lol, happy to see another kpop fan in here!
 
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dmgtz96

Elite Member
Jul 13, 2020
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yeah dude to my ears k-pop sounds like the most sonicaly polished genre out there. every track i've ever heard sounds absolutely pristine technically and so much of it is just fun to listen to
Absolutely agreed, though for some people (especially those who don't focus too much on the production, which we obviously do since we're trance/electronic music fans) kpop comes off as fake and manufactured.

I've been listening to Lovelyz's instrumental album Muse on Music, 10/10 would recommend if you want to hear just instrumentals. All of their songs have excellent composition and production.
 
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TwinSilo

Senior Member
Feb 24, 2021
392 Posts
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USA
Nothing wrong with what Armin is doing. After what he did for us for years the man has the right to play 3 hours of bagpipe music on the show if he wants. And as already pointed out, he still plays Trance music, despite what all the naysayers say.
 
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facade1984

Senior Member
Apr 27, 2021
334 Posts
454 Thanked
Sydney NSW
Absolutely agreed, though for some people (especially those who don't focus too much on the production, which we obviously do since we're trance/electronic music fans) kpop comes off as fake and manufactured.

I've been listening to Lovelyz's instrumental album Muse on Music, 10/10 would recommend if you want to hear just instrumentals. All of their songs have excellent composition and production.
Oh absolutely, there's no getting around that. It's so odd to me how much of a part conscription plays in their music scene. Thanks for the recommendation too I'll check this one out
 
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Juna

Senior Member
Dec 11, 2020
454 Posts
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Why these people still getting annoyed with these things, we all moved on so long a go. Nobody of importance is caring. The underground MOVES
 

Progrez

Elite Member
Jun 17, 2022
2,295 Posts
1,122 Thanked
don't be silly mate, best case scenario they'll wipe their asses with these printed in ASOT studios

Armin is known for 'trance', ASOT is one of the most powerful brands in the whole EDM world, despite the overall trance loss of popularity.

And most importantly, after all, you like it or not, most of the stuff they play on ASOT, in fact, IS trance. not something you'd enjoy but still, that's trance too.

so let's not go the genre nazi way by spreading more pointless hate and snobbery

I don't think I'm being unreasonable here. Let's be honest, it deviates significantly from what trance music traditionally represented. It feels more like mindless noise, contradicting the essence of the genre. If we start labelling every Euro dance and electro house track as trance, we dilute the genre's identity. My disagreement doesn't stem from hate or snobbery. When have I recently demonstrated such behaviour? The tracks featured on ASOT often lean more towards commercialism and vocal dance, formulaic edm and uplifting trance catering to a broader audience rather than staying true to the core elements of trance.
We should just move on from Armin. I don’t see the name of his show doing any damage to trance. Actually it’s likely people tune in and eventually find their way to Imagine album, Blue Fear or Communication and then we have more trance fans
Ok, i have removed that bit.
Yeah, but those classics – that's what I'm after. I want to hear more tracks that capture the essence of those classics. It feels like the earlier ASOT fans miss out on that nostalgic vibe that current tracks have no meaning, attachment, no sentimental and human value to them.